Mississauga Marathon

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As you may or may not knowl, I ran a marathon in Mississauga this year. Just south of Toronto, I knew no one there and had no travel companions.

Let me pick up where my recap left off:

The first half was rather uneventful. There were some gusts of wind whenever we ran into open spaces but I simply figured this was nothing out of the ordinary and saw no foreshadowing whatsoever. However, a little after the halfway point (which, in spite of my intention to slow down, I ran in 1:35:02) I saw a HUGE sign in someone's yard. Easily 8 feet tall, it looked like a white sheet stretched out over some two by fours. I thought that this is really great that so many people have so many of their friends out to races supporting them when it may be the hardest physically endeavor they have ever tackled. Undoubtedly these little shows of encouragement might just be the thing that helps them through a tough time on the race course. However, as I get closer to the sign, I had to do a double and then triple take. In enormous letters on the sign were the words: GO Rauschenberg GO! The Great Dane!!

I couldn't believe it! I ran a little closer and looked at the people sitting on the porch. I knew nary a soul among them (I had no idea who I expected to be there but you can imagine I was quite perplexed). They all looked at me as I stared at the sign, so I pointed at it as I shouted to a few of them (dressed in camouflage and relaxing away): "That's ME!"

Instantly one of the guy's jumps off the porch, runs down to me, whips out a disposable camera and asks if I want to take a picture with the sign! Um, is the Pope Catholic? Yes, I do! So two not-so-quick pictures later, I take off again as he shouts to me that he will send this to the Mississauga paper as soon as he can. Now I just have to figure out which Mississauga paper!

Well, long story short. I got the picture in the mail the other day. Can't tell you how much that made my week.

Enjoy.